


N₂O More

by BritishAssistant



Category: Smile For Me (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Dental Fear, Dentophobia, Gen, I’m sorry, Laughing Gas, Nitrous Oxide, Odontophobia, Teeth, Tooth Loss, these tags are awful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 23:21:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19896043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BritishAssistant/pseuds/BritishAssistant
Summary: What happens after the Happy Ending, when Martha stops chugging and the air clears.





	N₂O More

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for odontophobia. I’m sorry I don’t know where this came from ;-;

Your name is Flower Kid, and you smile and wave as hard as your arm can go at Dr. Habit as the elevator doors close.

You did it. You did it! You spoke to him before that little ol’ soft spot of his was gone completely.

You got through to him using flower power and discarded diary pages and the unbeatable tactic of just plain listening.

You think a lot more folks could stand to listen to one another in this day and age. Might help clear up some misunderstandings.

And now you have a new friend who you can go and get coffee with sometime! You can’t wait!

The colors of the elevator interior are rapidly fading from the dizzyingly bright hues they assumed on your mad dash to the summit.

Habit must have turned Martha off sometime during your conversation. How nice of him!

You suck in a deeeep breath, glad to feel clean(ish) mountain oxygen fill your lungs instead of...of...

Something plips down onto your hand.

You look down at it.

Funny, does the elevator have a leak? Only, it seems like there’s water coming from somewhere and drip-dropping down onto your hand. And your jacket. And your cheeks.

You look around to find it, only to be startled by a sharp _ache_ in your mouth. Did a hornet fly in there and sting you or something? Because all of a sudden it really, really _hurts_.

Worse than the time fell off your bike and hit your jaw on the pavement to avoid crushing somebody’s delivery of perfect precious poppies.

The water leak’s gotten worse, streaming down your face now, making it hard to breathe, but you put your hand to your mouth anyway, to see if you can coax the hornet to come out and stop stinging you in such a delicate place.

The spit on your hand has streaks of red in it.

Oh.

Oh god.

Oh god.

You can feel it through the metallic tang of pennies that now floods your tongue.

Where a mountain is now a valley.

Where a wall now has gaps.

Where what was now isn’t.

Oh god.

Oh god.

You fumble for the small mirror, but your vision is blurred and hazy from the water, all you can see is a dark mess of _red_.

Oh god.

Oh god.

You slide down the elevator wall to the floor, choking on the taste of iron and salt in your localized rainstorm, tongue poking and prodding and poking, hoping that maybe this time, something will be there, that this is all a bad dream, all your feeble imagination, as your breath hitches around the lump in your throat.

Oh god.

Oh god.

_How many teeth did Habit pull again?_

The elevator doors _ping_ open.

You sit there, staring sightlessly at black corridor beyond them for a very long time.

Eventually, you stand, and hobble, hand clasped over your mouth, through the tunnel, into the sewers, past the lounge, into the atrium, and in front of the impossibly large doors to the outside world at last.

The paper children are gone.

You half-heartedly wonder where they went.

You can see Martha still belching smoke through the gates to the carnival. You can see where the glass shattered in Habit’s house on top of the tower.

You stare at that place for a long time.

Should you go back?

Would he be able to fix this?

Would he _want_ to?

You are tired. You don’t enjoy waking up early on the best of days, and the fiery ache in your mouth and the awful ache in your heart leaves you _exhausted_.

You want to go home.

You want to sleep.

So you wave at the Habit House one final time, then turn, and push at the doors.

They open with a slow majesty that suits their grandeur, and that you would be able to appreciate under better circumstances.

To your dull surprise, Kamal is standing behind them, fidgeting nervously.

When he sees you, he brightens up, “Hey flow—”

Then you get closer, and he gets a good look at you. The color drains from his face. “—oh. Oh _jeez_. Wh—I—what _happened_ to you?”

You take your hand away from your mouth.

And you smile for him.


End file.
